I know these lists are intended to be a bit grar-inducing to drive up pagviews, but…Company of Heroes Online as the 11th best game ever? Starcraft 2 ranked above the original, when it’s barely been out for a fraction of the time and we have yet to really see their relative impacts? Oblivion as number 3? The mind boggles. Boggles, I say.

The RPS series that stav linked above has been a lot of fun to read so far (I’ve got to catch up, I’m only two installments in) and I appreciate their overtly unserious approach the notion of ranking—”there are some very good games” has all the substance of “this is an ordered list of THE BEST GAMES” without the stupid angry-making canonization of subjectivity.

cjelli said :
I know these lists are intended to be a bit grar-inducing to drive up pagviews, but…Company of Heroes Online as the 11th best game ever? Starcraft 2 ranked above the original, when it’s barely been out for a fraction of the time and we have yet to really see their relative impacts? Oblivion as number 3? The mind boggles. Boggles, I say.

There were a surprising amount of sequels in that list, especially considering the games that didn’t make the list. (Vampire: the Masquerade Bloodlines, any Dawn of War game, Duke Nukem 3D, etc) That said, it might go to show that this is more of a purely voted list than most top lists, which usually wouldn’t have both L4D2 and L4D, System Shock I&II, Morrowind and Oblivion. And I did like how many titles got high ranking for being innovative, like Zeno Clash, Call of Pripyat, and Supreme Commander 1/2.

With lists like these, I find that the specific numbering (especially for numbers higher than 10) isn’t as important as whether they made the cut at all. It is kind of neat to see a PC-game-only list, though. Most of the lists like this that I’ve seen in the past were either for console games, or for both console and PC games.

I can’t believe that Empire Earth didn’t make the list. I always preferred EE to AoE2, so I really was expecting to see it on there. And I agree with the comments that several reviewers expressed in the article itself: They should have gone with UT2K4 over UT. But these lists are always pretty subjective, and it’s still nice to see all these ideas for games that I can go back and play, should I ever see them on a Steam sale.

I’m sad that Jedi Knight didn’t make the cut, but I have a hard time choosing which game it should replace, so I can’t complain too much. It sure was fun to be able to run around with a lightsaber and force powers in a FPS, though. It’s also too bad that none of the Descent games made the list. I had lots of fun with both Descent 1 and 2.

katrel said :
With lists like these, I find that the specific numbering (especially for numbers higher than 10) isn’t as important as whether they made the cut at all.

Yeah, I get that, but seems to me that Grim Fandango is about an order of magnitude too low. I really can’t quibble with too many of the others, though I was a bit disappointed that Anchorhead was the only Interactive Fiction on the list. I mean, surely Zork and Adventure need to be on there, if not some of the other “amateur” stuff. I have argued before that The Gostak may be the most mind-blowing, creative, immersive game I’ve ever played, IF or otherwise.

I find it suprising that Rome: Total War was so high on the list. I tried playing that game, but it never impressed me. I liked Age of Mythology, and I loved Civ IV, but playing R:TW seemed like a glacially slow experience.

To see this below Ultima VII is proof that we live in a broken world, controlled by demons. Or dumb writers whom I’ll fight. I’ve been replaying it recently, and it’s shocking to see how far the standards of game writing have fallen in the decade since. This is a text book for plotting and character design, and all developers should be studying it.

This was obviously written by a man of discerning tastes. Torment as #19? Inconceivable!

spacebutler said :
I find it surprising that Rome: Total War was so high on the list. I tried playing that game, but it never impressed me. I liked Age of Mythology, and I loved Civ IV, but playing R:TW seemed like a glacially slow experience.

I have been playing a lot of Rome: Total War recently (Mac user, slow to get stuff) and the fun I get out of it is relishing each and every utter victory I score over the AI, which doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing, but is happy fun to crush anyway, especially with onagers and Cretan archers.

The game gets really slow once your empire gets big, though, and Civ IV is definitely much better.

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